How can we repay God for all his goodness

This is the title of one of the chapters of the Rule for Monks written by St. Basil the Great. St. Basil (+390) is an early Church Father from Cappadoccia. His Rule for Monks inspired St. Benedict of Nursia and others who would write rules for monks in the western church.

No one can find adequate words to describe all the wonders or gifts of God to mankind. But He gives us gifts daily in each of our lives.

He created us not because He needed us but rather out of Love, because He is Love. He doesn’t ask much of us in return. He gave Moses 10 rules of life on Mt. Sinai. When Jesus came into the world He summed these up in two commandments.

The first is that we are to love God completely with all of our being, all of our mind and all of our soul. The second is that we are to love each other as we love ourselves.

These are not impossible requests. They are not impossible demands. He created us. He gave us life. He gave us an inclination toward good and He is the Ultimate Good. But He also gave us free will.

And it is this free will that allows us to ignore God; to disobey Him; to do as we please, not what pleases Him.

At the beginning of creation, God put man in a garden of delights. Man was much like God. He didn’t have to produce anything for God had produced it all for man. And man could have kept it all. He could have continued to walk in the garden with God. He was forbidden to eat of only one tree located in that Garden.

Instead man disobeyed God. Adam and Eve did eat of the tree which was forbidden to them and so they lost everything. Their life was perfect and now was in ruins. And we, like them often find ourselves longing for God on one hand and yet ignoring Him on the other.

In Western Churches, you have recently celebrated the greatest feast of the Christian Church--the Resurrection of Christ. In that act alone Jesus Christ, the Son of God, gave His life as a man in the most degrading way known to mankind at that time and then He rose from the dead. The Eastern Christian Churches still have two weeks to go before they get to Easter or Pasch as they call it.

In His death and resurrection Jesus destroyed death and restored life.

He opened the way for us to have once again, the beautiful eternal life that God had given to man before the disobedience of Adam and Eve. And once again all He asks of us is LOVE.

Think about your life. How many times have you been in difficulties?

How many crises have you faced? And how many times have you been saved from those disasters by one small event in your life that changed everything.

Have you ever considered that it may have been God who saved you once again? If it was, all you have to do in return is love Him!!!!